Naturism

“ Naturism is the worship paid to personified natural objects: the sky, the sun, the moon, the mountains, the thunder, etc. The Hottentots have been said to adore the moon, in whose honour they perform long dances. ”

“ Nevertheless, that which ethnologists call Naturism, Animism, or Fetishism nowhere constitutes in primitive Africa a body of doctrine, with correlative precepts and settled practice which may be reduced to a system. The idea of a Being higher than man, invisible, inaccessible, master of life and death, orderer of all things, seems to exist everywhere; among the Negritos, the Hottentots, the Bantu, the Nigritians, the Hamites ”

“ There is no religious system, ancient or recent, where one does not meet, under different forms, two religions, as it were, side by side, which, though being united closely and mutually penetrating each other, do not cease, nevertheless, to be distinct. The one addresses itself to the phenomena of nature, either the great cosmic forces, such as winds, rivers, stars or the sky, etc., or else the objects of various sorts which cover the surface of the earth, such as plants, animals, rocks, etc.; for this reason it has been given the name of naturism. ”

“ Certain anthropologists and ethnologists, anxious to find in Africa a territory propitious to their theories, endeavour to prove that the religious evolution of man starts from simple Naturism, whence it proceeds to Animism, and thence to Fetishism, to attain at length to a more or less pure Theism. ”

“ LEADING CONCEPTIONS OF THE ELEMENTARY RELIGION—continued
II.—Naturism
The spirit of the naturistic school is quite different. In the first place, it is recruited in a different environment. The animists are, for the most part, ethnologists or anthropologists. The religions which they have studied are the crudest which humanity has ever known. Hence comes the extraordinary importance which they attribute to the souls of the dead, to spirits and to demons, and, in fact, to all spiritual beings of the second order: it is because these religions know hardly any of a higher order. ”

“ In the same way, the arrangement of religious facts is explained quite differently, according as we put naturism, animism or some other religious form at the beginning of the evolution. Even the most specialized scholars, if they are unwilling to confine themselves to a task of pure erudition, and if they desire to interpret the facts which they analyse, are obliged to choose one of these hypotheses, and make it their starting-point. ”

“ Let us apply these principles of liberty and morality to natural needs. The animal is by nature limited in its desires; instinct directs it and binds it within definite tracks of needs, to step out of which it has neither the power nor the temptation, It does not eat in order to eat, or to enjoy itself by eating, but only to appease its hunger, and when it has eaten its fill it is also satisfied; it mates from a physical need in a definite measure and at definite times, and outside of these times the sexual instinct is of itself quiescent. ”

“ They divide the pleasures of the body into two sorts—the one is that which gives our senses some real delight, and is performed either by recruiting Nature and supplying those parts which feed the internal heat of life by eating and drinking, or when Nature is eased of any surcharge that oppresses it, when we are relieved from sudden pain, or that which arises from satisfying the appetite which Nature has wisely given to lead us to the propagation of the species. ”

“ Can you imagine a more outlandish, ridiculous, awkward, complicated, cruel and fearful system of reproduction than that which we are under yoke to pursue? Without the elaborate details of the perilous stages of life's development, this is the method of incubation Nature imposes upon us. Before the birth of a human being, one male and one female—that is, one man and one woman—must have sexual intercourse. Whether this intercourse is prompted by all the finer impulses of life or is accomplished by the savageness of rape makes no difference to Nature's purpose. ”

“ The naturist who has regained health and strength through obedience to the laws of his being, enjoys a measure of self-content, gladness of soul and enthusiasm which cannot be explained by the mere possession of physical health. These highest and purest attainments of the human soul are not the results of mere physical well-being, but of the peace and harmony which come only from obedience to the law. ”

“ Well, but if it were the intention of Nature that man should eat cooked flesh, she would surely have provided him with ready-made cooks; or, rather, she would have herself cooked it as she is wont to do fruits, which are best and sweetest without the intervention of fire. Nature, surely, does not fail in providing necessary provision for her children, according to the common boast. But what is more necessary than to make food pleasurable? And, as she does in the case of sexual love by which she procures the preservation of the species, so would she procure the preservation of the genus. ”

“ How sweet and gentle and soothing is Nature! Who would think that there lurked in her also such vile forces, such odious possibilities! For of course I understand that this dreadful thing which has sprung out at me is neither supernatural nor even preternatural. No, it is a natural force which this woman can use and society is ignorant of. The mere fact that it ebbs with her strength shows how entirely it is subject to physical laws. ”

“ There come moods when these clothes of ours are not only too irksome to wear, but are themselves indecent. Perhaps indeed he or she to whom the free exhilarating extasy of nakedness in Nature has never been eligible (and how many thousands there are!) has not really known what purity is—nor what faith or art or health really is. (Probably the whole curriculum of first-class philosophy, beauty, heroism, form, illustrated by the old Hellenic race—the highest height and deepest depth known to civilization in those departments—came from their natural and religious idea of Nakedness.) ”

“ By introducing sexual hygiene we are breaking with the tradition of the past which professed to leave the process by which the race is carried on to Nature, to God, especially to the devil. We are claiming that it is a matter for individual personal responsibility, deliberately exercised in the light of precise knowledge which every young man and woman has a right, or rather a duty, to possess. That conception of personal responsibility thus extended to the sphere of sex in the reproduction of the race may well transform life and alter the course of civilization. ”

“ That such was and is Nature's intent is evidenced in the purely animal kingdom, where the distinctive characteristics of the sexes, their different organisms and duties, all proclaim the preeminence of the sterner sex and the consequent dependence of the weaker. Man, too, half animal, half spirit as he is, verifies in himself this universal law. His body mirrors Nature as faithfully as his soul reflects the image of God. ”

“ Sexuality, if it is left to itself, as it is in the case of other species, other forms of life, is merely a biological need, because the living organism has this object to survive and produce one like itself. Anything you superimpose on that is totally unrelated to the living organism. But we have turned that, what you call sexual activity, which is biological in its nature, into a pleasure movement. ”

“ Likewise, Nature expresses the intention of reproduction [pg 209] by giving to plants and animals distinctive organs for this purpose. These are endowed with exquisite sensibility, so that their proper exercise produces enjoyment beneficial to both. Excessive sexual indulgence not only prostrates the nervous system, enfeebles the body, and drains the blood of its vivifying elements, but is inconsistent with intellectual activity, morality, and spiritual development. ”

“ To speak of the higher organic life on this globe as sexual, therefore, is merely to state in other words, that all higher organic life is doomed to die, and must be replaced by new life. Abolish death and you abolish the meaning and the need of sex and reproduction. Abolish sex and reproduction, and, if you cannot establish eternal higher organic life, the higher organic life of the globe must for ever perish. ”

“ Modesty is not, however, the only natural impulse which has to be considered in relation to the custom of nakedness. It seems probable that in cultivating the practice of nakedness we are not merely carrying out a moral and hygienic prescription but allowing legitimate scope to an instinct which at some periods of life, especially in adolescence, is spontaneous and natural, even, it may be, wholesomely based in the traditions of the race in sexual selection. Our rigid conventions make it impossible for us to discover the laws of nature in this matter by stifling them at the outset. ”

“ In fact, Nature herself has provided an excellent covering for us in our skin. The idea that the body looks unseemly in undress is absurd, for the very best pictures are those that display the naked body. When we cover up the most ordinary parts of our body, it is as though we felt ashamed of them in their natural condition, and as though we found fault with Nature's own arrangement. ”

“ The sexual instinct, per se, only guarantees the perpetuity of the species; our erotic caprices determine the qualities of its representatives. . . . In regard to the human species the importance of this perpetual selection is enhanced by the perpetual necessity of counteracting the influence of degenerative agencies. Nature continually strives to correct all deviations from the standard of her normal types, and thus assists the survival of the fittest by preventing the birth of the most unfit. ”

“ Nevertheless, our own self-constitution in the sexual act confirms a double identity of the human species: nature, involved in the struggle for survival, where the sheer power of numbers and strategies for coping with everything destructive make for continuous selection (Darwin's law of natural selection) ; and culture, in which humans pursue a path of progressive self-definition, many times in conflict with the natural condition, or what Freud and his followers defined as the psychological dimension. ”

“ We see in the diversity of natural phenomena the desire, the libido, in the most diverse applications and forms. In early childhood we find libido at first wholly in the form of the instinct of nutrition, providing for the development of the body. As the body develops, there open up, successively, new spheres of influence for the 41libido. The last, and, from its functional significance, most overpowering sphere of influence, is sexuality, which at first seems very closely connected with the function of nutrition. ”

“ We do not come into touch with Nature. Consequently we see no Beauty. But if we are in a sensitive and receptive mood, if our minds are not preoccupied, and if our soul is open to the impressions which Nature is ever raining on it, then we respond to Nature's appeal. We feel ourselves in tune with her. We come into communion with her, and we see Beauty.
If we are ourselves feeling sad and sorrowful when we look out on Nature, and there all should happen to be bright and gay, we shall feel out of harmony with Nature, we shall not feel in touch with her, and we shall not see Beauty. ”

“ The spiritual body is declared to be more essential than the natural body (the psychical or intellectual body) ; and the former really and materially penetrates the bodies of all men.
Nor is this all. The studies made by contemporary biologists, and notably by the Russian biologist Janicki, on sexual reproduction [65] have explained how this method of reproduction safeguards the homogeneity of the germ plasm in an animal species, and how it unceasingly renews the mutual contacts among the individual members of a race. ”

“ And just as killing frost or withering heat stunts and dwarfs a young plant, so any abuse or lack of care of the sexual system will dwarf and stunt the growing boy, physically, mentally, and morally.
But even after a man has reached a full state of physical development, his sexual system exerts the same all-powerful influence over his body and mind. ”

“ We hold that these different forms are pernicious and morally unhealthy, calculated to evilly influence the sensual instincts of the male sex, and to instil into the other sex a totally wrong and mischievous idea of the right and wrong side of Nature. We are convinced 132that this system has been productive of an immense amount of immorality and consequent suffering and degradation in the past, and that the system of elevating Nature into a mystery is the greatest conceivable incitement to sensuality and immorality. We hold that there should be no mystery or secrecy anent the laws of God. ”

“ Now, the whole significance of these changes, physical and mental, is fundamentally sexual and social. Human life, it may be said, has a twofold aspect. As a mere animal organism, there is the perpetuation of the species, which nature secures by the mere force of the sex impulse. ”

“ Evidently the rule of life for health's sake must be to push sexuality as much into the background of the mind as nature has put the sex organs in the human body. Reason does not protect knowledge but increases suggestion. Only absorbing occupation of mind with other subjects that will bring about neglect of these functions, as of all other physiological functions, leaving them to nature, serves to keep them in their proper place and condition. ”

“ A child toddling along downhill unregardful of the force of gravitation falls on its face and screams with pain. But Nature, represented by the mother, rushes up, seizes the little thing in her arms, presses it lovingly to her bosom, rock it and coaxes it and covers it with kisses.
So if Nature can think and feel and strive and show mercy and loving-kindness, she is entitled to the dignity of personality. And when we stand back and regard Nature as a whole, we shall look upon her as a Person and nothing less. ”